Wednesday Reading Meme

[osprey_archer]

What I’ve Just Finished Reading

Rosemary Sutcliff’s The Chronicles of Robin Hood. This was Sutcliff’s first published book, so she hasn’t fully developed her characteristic style yet (although you will be glad to hear that at one point Little John looks at Robin Hood like a faithful hound!), but this is nonetheless a cracking good read. Very pacy! Lots of Robin Hood stories that I wasn’t previously familiar with! I’ve never delved as deep into the Robin Hood mythology as King Arthur, but both story cycles seem to have stories on stories on stories.

What I’m Reading Now

I’ve begun reading a Naomi Mitchison biography, and also reading Mitchison’s 1920s collection of short stories, When the Bough Breaks, which is mostly stories set around Vercingetorix’s Gaulish rebellion against Rome. All very good; the one that sticks with me right now is the story of a Greek artist who went to sketch Vercingetorix for a coin after Vercingetorix had been years in prison (I guess Rome was striking memorial coins for the Triumph in which Vercingetorix was to be killed?), and just, you know, as a member of one conquered people to another, and their very different relationships with Rome…

I’ve been talking to skygiants and genarti a bit about Mitchison and Sutcliff and Mary Renault as a cluster of writers who are all in different ways concerned with slavery and Empire (Renault more in her historical novels than her contemporaries, of course), and Megan Whalen Turner as perhaps the chief modern exponent of this tradition. There’d be a good Ph.D. thesis in it for someone, maybe.

What I Plan to Read Next

Lisa See’s Lady Tan’s Circle of Women. I’ve been meaning to read this since it came out, and it is at last time!

Comments

[asakiyume]

Realizing I know very few Robin Hood stories! Ones of how he encountered key members of his band, winning the archery competition, and rescuing Will Scarlet--that's pretty much it! When you say stories on stories on stories, do you mean stories involving side members? Like backstories for the members of the band? That kind of thing?

[osprey_archer]

There are a lot more "how he encountered the members of the band" stories than I had heard previously (pretty much all of them involve him getting in a wrestling match/duel/shooting contest with someone and then saying "What ho! A doughty warrior! Join my band?"), and also a lot more members of the band, and lots of the band members have backstories and also complicated family relationships to each other... Some of this Sutcliff may have made up for her book, of course.

[regshoe]

One of my favourite Robin Hood stories is the one told by Steeleye Span in 'Gamble Gold', which is very similar in shape although the character involved isn't one of the gang: Robin meets this pedlar named Gamble Gold, they fight, Robin loses, then they realise they're long-lost cousins, make up and go happily off to the pub together.

[osprey_archer]

Sometimes you fight a guy who just isn't in a place in his life to run off and be an outlaw, so instead you just go to the pub after!

[regshoe]

Aww, I like the idea of early-Sutcliff's take on Robin Hood—I must try this one sometime.

There's definitely something in that thesis... I haven't actually read any of Mitchison's Roman-era books yet, and I'm sure they will make a fascinating comparison to Sutcliff and Renault.

[osprey_archer]

It's very interesting! In some ways it's already very Sutcliff (that hound comparison!), but also she hasn't yet discovered that her forte is intense warrior duo friendships, so the emphasis here is very much on the whole band as a merry group.